06 April 2013

Original Signees on International League Rosters

The Norfolk Tides were to have opened at home on Thursday, April 4, and I was scheduled to be the milb.com datacaster. Unfortunately, the game was postponed by rain; I'll still end up working four of the seven games on the Tides' first homestand. I'll have a thorough look at those first Norfolk games next week.

While waiting for the rain to stop or for the front office to officially postpone the game, I amused myself by looking at the Tides' roster. One of the first things I noticed is that the Tides feature only four players who were originally drafted / signed by the parent Orioles -- Zach Britton, Zach Clark, L.J. Hoes, and Jonathan Schoop.

I think we can all agree that the Orioles have not had particularly deep drafts in recent years. They have identified top talents at the very top of their drafts -- Matt Wieters, Dylan Bundy, Kevin Gausman, maybe Brian Matusz -- but after that their selections haven't been very productive. And it would make sense that the lack of original signees on their AAA roster would provide further evidence that their drafting has been shallow.

Then I looked at the Durham roster - printed rosters are available in the press box for me to compare with the milb.com Gameday rosters to make sure all players are entered in the system - and saw that the Durham Bulls had only six players on its roster originally signed by Tampa Bay. There are reasons for that - the Bulls' roster includes six prospects from the Matt Garza and James Shields trades - but it was still surprising that Durham had only two more players originally signed by their parent club than Norfolk. So, there are two questions - how many such players do AAA teams have, and is there a correlation between the number of such players and the quality of a team's farm system?

The following table lists the fourteen International League teams, with their parent, the number of players on the team originally signed by the parent, and the ranking of the parent team's farm system in the updated Baseball America preseason talent rankings.

Lehigh Valley

Phillies

14

24

Scranton

Yankees

13

11

Toledo

Tigers

12

27

Louisville

Reds

11

15

Charlotte

White Sox

10

29

Gwinnett

Braves

9

26

Indianapolis

Pirates

9

7

Pawtucket

Red Sox

9

6

Columbus

Indians

8

20

Syracuse

Nationals

8

13

Rochester

Twins

7

10

Durham

Rays

6

4

Norfolk

Orioles

4

17

Buffalo

Blue Jays

2

22

AVERAGE

8.7

Norfolk and Durham, in fact, have fewer players originally signed and developed in their parent organizations than most other International League teams. The lowest is Buffalo, for which there are two reasons. First, the Blue Jays' stripped their farm system in offseason trades with the Marlins and Mets, and hence needed more veteran free agents than other teams. Second, Buffalo replaced the Mets with Toronto as their parent because the Mets hadn't been providing the Bisons with competitive teams; Toronto wants to develop a long-term relationship with nearby Buffalo and provided them with veterans to help them win.

In fact, the bottom four teams all have different reasons for their low ranking. Norfolk has few such players because the Orioles' drafts have not provided depth. Durham has few such players because they trade veterans for prospects. Rochester has few such players, at least temporarily, because they have a lot of players on their disabled list and retained more of their free-agent signings.

There also doesn't appear to be much of a correlation between the number of players on the AAA team who were originally signed by the parent club and how good a farm system is. The worst farm systems do seem to have more such players than the average or better farm systems. So, if there are a lot of your team's farm-system products on its AAA affiliate, that's not a good sign.

Contributors

Jon Shepherd - Founder/Editor@CamdenDepotStarted Camden Depot in the summer of 2007. By day, a toxicologist and by night a baseball analyst. His work is largely located on this site, but may pop up over at places like ESPN or Baseball Prospectus.

Matt Kremnitzer - Assistant Editor@mattkremnitzerMatt joined Camden Depot in early 2013. His work has been featured on ESPN SweetSpot and MASNsports.com.

Patrick Dougherty - Writer@pjd0014Patrick joined Camden Depot in the fall of 2015, following two years writing for Baltimore Sports & Life. He is interested in data analysis and forecasting, and cultivates those skills with analysis aimed at improving the performance of the Orioles (should they ever listen).

Nate Delong - Writer@OriolesPGNate created and wrote for Orioles Proving Ground prior to joining Camden Depot in the middle of 2013. His baseball resume includes working as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions and as a Video Intern for the Baltimore Orioles. His actual resume is much less interesting.

Avi Miller - Writer@AviMillerAvi is a SABR enthusiast who is interested in data-driven analysis. His worked has previously appeared on the Baltimore Sports Report.

Matt Perez - WriterMatt joined Camden Depot after the 2013 season. He is a data analyst/programmer in his day job and uses those skills to write about the Orioles and other baseball related topics.

Ryan Pollack - Writer@ryry9379Ryan roots for the Orioles from sunny Austin, TX and enjoys characterizing that elusive line between luck and skill.

Joe Reisel - WriterJoe has followed the Norfolk Tides now for 20 seasons. He currently serves as a Tides GameDay datacaster for milb.com and as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions (BIS). He is computer programmer/analyst by day.

Ryan Romano - Writer@triple_r_Ryan writes about the Orioles on Camden Depot and about all baseball at Beyond the Box Score. He previously wrote on Birds Watcher and on Camden Chat that one time.